First Day!

Today was my first official day in the classroom...finally! Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and 1.5 hours this morning were all professional development and training seminars so I finally go to go to my host school, Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School, and meet the students I will be working with. It's a small class-- only about 7 students because it's a special education class. Only 2 of the students have IEPs (Individualized Education Plans--a legally binding contract of accommodations and requirements for education for a student with learning disabilities) but the others have been evaluated as "needing remedial work" by the team of teachers which puts them in the class.

New York schools don't let out until June 26th so right now I'm working during the regular school day (7am-4pm), but the summer academy will be on a different schedule (8am-1pm) and is mandatory for students who didn't turn in large assignments/projects, missed final exams, or failed a class. All 7 of my students will be returning for the summer academy.

I think I'm really fortunate to get to work with Mrs. Harriell because while she does do remedial work the majority of the time, she also coordinates with the teachers to evaluate lesson plans to make sure students are being accommodated and she does do direct instruction sometimes. She's talked to one of the English teachers, Mr. Gavin (who I observed during my interview immersion day at Uncommon and connected with via email) so that I can deliver a full lesson to a larger, "regular" English class. A lot of what Mrs. Harriell does is similar to what I've seen and learned about ENL coordinators in school. Rather than a pull-out classroom (where English Language Learners would be isolated from other students for a full day of instruction with this one teacher, or in this case Special Ed students) the teacher focuses on training and preparing content teachers to make sure they are being accommodated in a general education classroom and then gets to work with the students one period a day for clarification, remedial work, or just extra time on in-class assignments. So I really do feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds with my placement this summer.

In other news unrelated to school and work, I have discovered a local bagel shop around the corner that has really phenomenal bagels which is going to be deadly for me this summer, but hey, at least I'm walking the 2 miles there and back to my school every day, right?